P&J: Dons manager’s search for a star

[mizer]

but calderwood does not expect ‘a hive of transfer activity’ at pittodrie in transfer window

 

By Paul Third

 

Published: 25/11/2008

 

Jimmy Calderwood and his coaching staff have started scouting matches in England as they ponder strengthening the Aberdeen squad but the Dons manager does not expect the new year to bring a hive of activity at Pittodrie.

 

Calderwood has dismissed reports linking him with a move for Newcastle goalkeeper Fraser Foster after watching him in action last week but confirmed he did watch the Magpies in action.

 

He said: “I was at the Ever-ton and Newcastle reserve game while Jimmy Nicholl was at the Liverpool reserve game against Wigan. We both went to another game the following night. We were not watching anyone in particular. We were just having a look to see who is out there.

 

“I would be amazed if we get another goalkeeper in during the next year and a half. We have three good goalkeepers here and another very promising one coming through.â€

 

Contract discussions with the players who will be out of contract in the summer are set to begin and, while Calderwood wants to retain his players, he believes it is prudent to assess the market in the event one moves on.

 

He said: “We got Sone Aluko and Josh Walker in last year and they both added strength and depth to the squad. If the opportunity is there to do something in January then we will look at it but I don’t expect anything more than one or two moves happening here.

 

“We have contract discussions to come and we have to do our homework in case some of the players here want to leave. I don’t expect that to happen and I don’t want anyone to leave but if a player decides he wants to go we will be prepared.â€

 

The watching briefs may be under way once more but the more pressing matter for the manager is eradicating the poor defending which has resurfaced recently.

 

Saturday’s 2-0 defeat by Rangers was another frustrating afternoon for Calderwood, who watched his players dominate for long spells at Ibrox only to concede soft goals at set-pieces.

 

He said: “Our football is starting to come back into our game but that’s four goals from corners we have lost in the last two games and it has cost us five points.

 

“We have the tallest team I have had at Aberdeen but we lost two scrappy goals despite dominating Rangers for 55 minutes.

 

“We hammered them in terms of possession but you have to make it count when you are on top and we didn’t do that.â€

 

The Aberdeen manager is also looking for his side to carry a bigger goal threat in games. With just 18 goals scored in the 15 games in the SPL so far, Calderwood knows more goals are required.

 

He said: “You don’t get too many chances at Ibrox but we created a lot at Hibs the previous week and didn’t take them.

 

“We played Sone in the hole behind Lee Miller and it caused Rangers massive problems but he is not the easiest player to catch in our own team and we didn’t support as well as we could have. We need to do better in those situations.â€

 

It would be no surprise if we were looking at a keeper as what are we going to do if Langfield gets injured, I would rather see young Bateman than Bossu.

[BobbyBiscuit]

We have three good goalkeepers here

 

That's a blatant lie.

[TENEMENTFUNSTER]

That's a blatant lie.

 

 

Now now BB, Seve does a good turn and Leighton is still there . . . . . and . . . . erm . . . Langfield isn't really bad.

[manc_don]

 

Now now BB, Seve does a good turn and Leighton is still there . . . . . and . . . . erm . . . Langfield isn't really bad.

 

 

We need a keeper and a right winger in Jan at least!

[Superstar Tradesman]

“We played Sone in the hole behind Lee Miller and it caused Rangers massive problems but he is not the easiest player to catch in our own team and we didn’t support as well as we could have. We need to do better in those situations.â€

 

Anyone know what the fuck that means? 

[BigAl]

Anyone know what the fuck that means?  

 

His pace and footballing brain is on a different level to abody else in the team

 

Nae real surprise there then

[BobbyBiscuit]

Anyone know what the fuck that means?   

 

Think he means that if the useless fuckers get the ball to him, they're all too fat/lazy/thick to catch up with him when he starts running with it.

[Guest swaddon]

Is it not the scouts job to go and look at players and watch games, and the manager's job to prepare his team for games?

[dave_min]

Is it not the scouts job to go and look at players and watch games, and the manager's job to prepare his team for games?

 

We don't have any scouts to do that job, JC got rid of them all ages ago.

[mizer]

I think that's JMG mob propaganda bullshit - think i read about scouts in the annual report

 

We got rid of many scouts and now pay consultant scouts.

 

http://www.thescoutingnetwork.co.uk/

 

EVERY MONTH THE SCOUTING NETWORK NEWSLETTER WILL

FOCUS ON ONE OF OUR CLIENT CLUBS

This month – Aberdeen

 

The words Director of Football

send a shiver down the spine of

many. It’s a post that has been

brought into the English game

during the last decade and has

often been a recipe for chaos.

At its worst it’s meant a backstage

battle between a frustrated

ex-manager and a younger coach over who

should pick the team, or a confused policy where

one man buys players that another doesn’t think

are up to the job.

But at it’s best . . . it works the way Willie Miller has

quietly developed the role at Aberdeen over the

last four seasons. Once a playing legend, then the

club’s manager, Miller has quietly gone about creating

a small revolution at Pittodrie, that has lessons

which could help a good many more clubs.

At 53, the man who once

stood alongside Alex

McLeish at the heart of Alex

Ferguson’s defence is as

forthright as an administrator

as he once was as a player.

Only now the club depends

on another equally strong

partnership between himself

and Managing Director Duncan

Fraser. As Miller explains: “Duncan looks after

the day to day running of the club as far as the

commercial and financial side is concerned, and

then I look after the football side. For me that covers

everything from the ten-year-olds right up to

appointing the manager and working with him on

the first team. We find that’s the ideal set up for a

club like ours.

“It’s probably fair to say that at the majority of clubs

who have had problems with a Director of Football

role, it has been because it hasn’t been clearly defined.

For us it has been, because it was up to me

to set it out in pretty much the way I saw it should

be. While I was away from the club I was still involved

with the Shareholders Trust and Supporters

Association, and that gave me some ideas. We

always thought if a club could be run with just two

men plus a chairman, so there are only two executives,

it would help the decision making process.â€

One of the keys is that Miller appoints the staff who

work throughout the football structure, and especially

that first team boss Jimmy Calderwood was

his choice. Miller says: “It was key that I didn’t

inherit the manager, and he was my recommendation

that the board supported. Going forward if

there was a change it would be the same.

 

“I think it’s important that somebody who has both

played and managed can understand the role and it

also helps that I don’t want to be back in the dug-out.

Maybe other directors of football have hankered to

get back in there, but I can honestly say hand on

heart I have no ambitions whatever. I don’t envy

managers, I just wish I’d had somebody like me,

when I was manager here a decade ago, to take

some of the pressure and responsibility off me.

“As for Jimmy, he’s a very good coach, I like the

way he wants his teams to play, and that he’s not

frightened to make tactical changes - in fact sometimes

people think he makes too many! His spent

ten years playing in Holland after leaving Birmingham

at the age of 25, did his coaching qualifications

there too, and that definitely had a big impact on

how he sees the game being played.â€

Miller sees his job as providing the infrastructure to

help Calderwood and the coaches of his younger

teams do theirs properly, and that’s included building

a scouting system and sports science unit to

support them. Miller says: “I come from an old

school background but I’m pretty open to new ideas

and technology, anything that helps produce better

footballers and better athletes. It’s our aim eventually

that at least half the first team squad should be

players we have produced through our own system.

That might take ten years, so far it’s taken four years

to get where we are now that our own youngsters

are just beginning to put pressure on the first team

for places and of course we have to know where

to get replacements when, as happens, other clubs

come knocking and take our best youngsters away.

That’s where working with The Scouting Network

has already started to prove a help, for instance last

summer I lost Russell Anderson and then at Christmas

I also lost Chris Clarke and Michael Hart, that’s

the down side of producing good players and success.

As I said we want to keep them, but if we do

lose them I need the information at hand to help

Jimmy to bring in the right quality to replace them.

“Again that’s where the way of running the club

which we have developed has benefits. I can take

a long term view to build the structure without having

my neck on the block for the next two results.

The four years I have been here with Duncan we

have been pretty successful on the field and off it,

so we feel it is something we’ve made a success of

and something that other clubs could perhaps look

at and investigate.â€

We wish Aberdeen all the best for the coming

season.

[Superstar Tradesman]

Dingus is scouting for youth but I'm not sure about seniors.  But then with the likes of the internet/email and agents calling round is there any need for trawling games as we can't afford to buy anyone anyway.

 

Why pay a scout to find players on free transfers when they're chapping at your door?

 

If JC is networking and coming across well then there's every likelyhood that other managers might send their youth players here for a spell.  Mowbray and McLeish both recommended just that.

[Kowalski]

We don't have any scouts to do that job, JC got rid of them all ages ago.

 

That's rubbish.

[BobbyBiscuit]

Dingus is scouting for youth but I'm not sure about seniors.  But then with the likes of the internet/email and agents calling round is there any need for trawling games as we can't afford to buy anyone anyway.

 

Why pay a scout to find players on free transfers when they're chapping at your door?

 

If JC is networking and coming across well then there's every likelyhood that other managers might send their youth players here for a spell.  Mowbray and McLeish both recommended just that.

 

Why would Mark McGhee be scouting for us? 

[Superstar Tradesman]

Thought 'Weir' and typed 'Dingus' for some reason.   

[Kowalski]

Thought 'Weir' and typed 'Dingus' for some reason.   

 

Why would David Weir be scouting for us?

[Superstar Tradesman]

It gets started because certain people would do anything to say "I told you so, I was right from the start, nah-nah-nah-nah-nah, me, me, me, all me".

 

Of course that's 200 games they'll have been saying it for on Saturday and they're no closer to being 'proven' right.

 

They're willing to believe anything that shows the club in a bad light, somehow ironically to show they are 'real' fans.

[Superstar Tradesman]

Why would David Weir be scouting for us?

 

Read your post and thought 'cunt'. 

[Kowalski]

Just sign a decent keeper FFS!

Been saying that since Kjaer left. 

[Mackie's ace!]

That's rubbish.

 

I agree. There's certainly some form of scouting system in the club.

[TENEMENTFUNSTER]

I agree. There's certainly some form of scouting system in the club.

 

Of course there is but that doesn't suit some folk.

 

Though dave-min is not one of those to be fair.

[Reekie_Red]

so far it’s taken four years to get where we are now that our own youngsters are just beginning to put pressure on the first team

for places and of course we have to know where to get replacements when, as happens, other clubs come knocking and take our best youngsters away.

 

No need to find adequate replacements really. Once a youngster shows enough talent and ambition to play at the top of his game, JC releases them to the other SPL clubs for diddly-squat (see Andrew Bagshaw and Ryan Strachan).

[Kowalski]

No need to find adequate replacements really. Once a youngster shows enough talent and ambition to play at the top of his game, JC releases them to the other SPL clubs for diddly-squat (see Andrew Bagshaw and Ryan Strachan).

 

That's not true though.

 

Bagshaw's at Peterhead.

Not sure what happened to Ryan Strachan.  Has he found a club yet?

[Reekie_Red]

Didn't Celtic grab him?

[boboisared]

That's not true though.

 

Bagshaw's at Peterhead.

Not sure what happened to Ryan Strachan.  Has he found a club yet?

There was talk of Bagshaw going to the Highland League because the players who replaced him atAberdeen who were then told they weren't good enough replaced him in the pecking order at Peterhead 

 

Strachan is at Celtic, wasn't released for footballing reasons.

[Harcus]

Didn't Celtic grab him?

 

Boys Club at it again eh?